Flowers
by P.I.D
Summary: A collection of vignettes spanning from Rapunzel's sixth birthday to her wedding day.
1. Chapter 1:  Lilies

Authors Note: The following is a collection of four vignettes. They were ideas that popped into my head at one point or another, but I didn't feel as if any of them were substantial enough to support an actual plot (since a plot, sadly, needs things like conflicts, climaxes, and resolutions). Anyway, I thought it might be a fun idea to write them all up and post them together. I divided them into different chapters for clarity's sake, since it would probably be a little jarring to jump an entire year ahead in the space of an indent. So it's sort of a chapter fic...but not really, since they were all written and posted at the same time.

* * *

On Rapunzel's sixth birthday, Mother Gothel gave her a pot. It was small and squat, made from grayish clay and filled with pitch black soil. It wasn't long before the soil burst in pale pink lilies, their weak color upstaged by the vibrant orange and green swirls Rapunzel painted on the clay. Still, Rapunzel thought they were the most beautiful flowers ever, even more beautiful than the flowers her mother was raising, the startlingly fuchsia phlox on the windowsill.

The phlox was outgrowing its pot, so it was with difficulty that Rapunzel found enough room on the window sill to place her lilies. Still, she managed. After all, in her botany book it said plants needed sunlight to grow big and strong, so she couldn't keep her lilies inside the tower with her.

Sometimes Rapunzel wondered if people also needed sunlight to grow big and strong. Maybe she was so much shorter than mother because she stayed inside so much—but when she asked mother about this, she just laughed.

"I don't know where you get these silly ideas, Rapunzel! You're shorter than I am because you're nothing but a child!"

"So when I'm older I'll be as tall as you?"

"Well, let's not jump to conclusions…" Mother patted her on the head and turned back to the dress dummy, where she was about to start making a new dress for Rapunzel.

"Mommy, can my new dress be red like yours?"

"Of course not, Flower. Red's for grown ups—how about a nice pink one, like your lilies?"

"Yes, mommy."

During the day, when mother left to get food and water, Rapunzel would lean onto the sill and talk to her lilies. She named the plant Louise. Louise's favorite color was blue, so Rapunzel repainted the pot in a bright azure. Louise was afraid of spiders, liked guitar strumming, and became irritable when it rained. Mostly, however, Louise was a good listener, so Rapunzel passed a couple of hours each day whispering to her.

She whispered because she didn't want the phlox, which she'd named Antoinette, to overhear. Antoinette would report everything Rapunzel said to mother, and Rapunzel knew mother wouldn't want her talking to a plant. She hadn't liked Rapunzel talking to the cooking ware, after all. She'd thrown a fit when she'd found out Rapunzel had named the frying pan Amelia.

"Don't be ridiculous, Rapunzel!" she'd snarled. "Why should you be lonely? You have me, don't you?" Then she sighed and sank into a nearby chair. "I guess I'm just not good enough for you. Perhaps it was foolish of me to think that a girl would want her own mother for company. Despite everything I've done for you, you'd rather talk to a frying pan than to me!"

It took a lot of clutching mother's dress, insisting that no, she only needed her, a few tears, and a pledge never to talk to Amel—the frying pan again before mother was satisfied enough to let her sing to her.

Rapunzel kept her promise. She never spoke to Amelia again, and over time Amelia faded back into the frying pan. But still, she hadn't promised not to name anything else, and after all, a plant was a living thing, so it wasn't like she was talking to the cooking ware again, right? But in any case, she suspected enough of mother's displeasure to want to keep it a secret. So she made sure never to talk to Louise until mother was out of sight.

When the frost came and Louise died, Rapunzel cried for a week.

I'll never love a flower as much as Louise, not ever, she thought.


	2. Chapter 2:  Crabapple Blossoms

Dinner in the Royal Dining Hall was quiet that evening. The King was out with his Steward, Rapunzel was abnormally subdued, and Eugene and the Queen were observant enough to realize that Rapunzel did not want to be asked how her day had gone. When she failed to rejoice over the potatoes roasted with rosemary—her favorite—they both made mental notes to talk to her after dinner and find out what was wrong.

"So Eugene," the Queen asked, putting an end to ten solid minutes of Rapunzel giving the barest replies to the Queen's attempts at conversation, Eugene stealthily slipping Pascal bits of food, and the Queen pretending not to notice half of his meal wasn't making it to his mouth, "how was your meeting with the Captain of the Guard?"

"Pretty good," Eugene answered, which wasn't the truth, not exactly. The meeting had been boring and awkward, because neither he nor the Captain of the Guard was sure what Eugene was, exactly, and why the King had scheduled a meeting for him with the Captain of the Guard in the first place. So they'd ended up talking about fortifications and then, when Eugene had proposed playing a hand of cards, the Captain had ushered him out of his office.

Still, it had been the pleasantest 30 minutes he'd ever spent with him.

"How was your day?" Eugene asked the Queen, who launched into an account of preparations for the Winter Festival…which actually wouldn't be for quite some time, but the Queen lived months ahead of everyone else. She had to, after all.

It was when the Queen asked Rapunzel how the Great Hall should be decorated that Rapunzel set down her fork and asked to be excused.

"Are you feeling well?" the Queen asked.

"I'm fine, just a little tired. May I be excused?"

There was nothing to do but say yes, and Rapunzel left the table.

Pretty soon it was just Eugene and the Queen staring at each other over their rosemary roasted potatoes...and Pascal, covertly latching his tongue around one of Eugene's artichoke hearts.

"I'm gonna take a wild guess," Eugene said, "and say Rapunzel's first official day at Corona's Council didn't go so well…"

It hadn't.

When the King at last hurried into the Royal Dining Hall, their suspicions were confirmed by the grim line of his mouth. They didn't receive an account from him, however. He just asked where Rapunzel was and, when they told him she had already retired, he headed to the door.

"What about your dinner?" the Queen asked, as the servants set it out.

"Not hungry," they heard him answer. By now he was out of the room.

"Well Pascal," the Queen sighed and gestured towards the King's plate, at last looking at the lizard she had been pretending not to notice the entire evening, "go ahead."

He did. Or, at least, he ate a few more artichoke hearts before scurrying out of the room.

Eugene and the Queen looked at each other. It didn't take much intelligence to see that their after dinner plans, consoling Rapunzel, were already being taken care of by a King and a chameleon.

"Wanna play cards?" Eugene suggested.

* * *

"So I found you at last."

Rapunzel looked up from her spot in between two crabapple trees. The King's bulky figure loomed over her, blocking out the moon's white-blue glow.

"I'm impressed," Rapunzel mumbled. "I chose this spot because I didn't think anyone would find me." The crabapple trees were part of a winding extension of the palace garden, a section out of sight from the palace's windows. Prior to the King's entrance, the only company Rapunzel had was a day's worth of memories she'd just as soon forget.

"Well," the King admitted, "I only found you by following Pascal."

On cue, Pascal ran up onto Rapunzel's shoulder. Either because of the night's shadows or because of Pascal's natural camouflage, Rapunzel hadn't noticed him until then.

"He can always seem to find you," the King said and began to lower himself down onto the ground by Rapunzel, who eeped.

"I wouldn't do that!" she warned him, causing him to freeze. "The grass is covered with crabapples—I'm afraid I've already ruined my dress. I didn't notice until it was too late."

The King shrugged. "Is that all?" Then he sat down heavily next to her. She could hear the splerch of squashed fruit. "Did I ever tell you crabapples are my favorite fruit?" he asked her.

Rapunzel shook her head. She probably would have remembered something like that. "I didn't know people ever ate them."

"Most people cannot stand the taste. They think they are too sour, but I like them." The King picked up a nearby crabapple. It was brown and splotchy—not fresh enough for eating. So he tossed it into the nearby pond instead, and the glassy surface was disfigured by a series of ripples. Rapunzel, following his lead, picked up a crabapple of her own and chucked it into the pond…but the force was so great that she and the King were splashed in the process.

She sighed.

"Some days it just feels like you can't do anything right."

The King nodded. "Some days it does," he agreed.

"Some days," Rapunzel continued, "your shoe falls off as you're walking to meet a group of councilors and you don't realize it until it's lost in the crowd."

The King nodded again. "That has been known to happen."

"And then," Rapunzel went on, "you call Lord Curmegiant 'Lord Curmudgeon' the entire day and no one corrects you until afterwards because they're all too embarrassed to say anything and you don't realize 'curmudgeon' is an insult because there are still so many words you don't know!"

"And some days," the King offered as he tossed another crabapple into the pond, "do you declare yourself an opponent of the proposition to donate unused farmland to the kingdom's orphanages so they can raise some of their own food?"

"Because you've gotten it mixed up with Proposition XX.—that is, building a dam at Freeman's River? Ugh!" Rapunzel slumped against a tree trunk and heard a succession of splerches. "They must have thought I hated orphans!"

"I think most of them unraveled the mystery when you stated Proposition XX. would cause an overpopulation of green-backed swamp leeches. Giving orphans farmland probably would not affect that."

This assurance, which the King had intended to be in the style of the comforting wryness Eugene employed so successfully with his daughter, only made Rapunzel groan and slump down further. Splerch, splerch, splerch.

"I prepared so much," she said, running her hands through her hair until her brown locks stuck up on end. "I went to the river site and read volumes and volumes about all the wildlife there and studied water currents and for what? So I could look like a lunatic! I thought I would be so impressive!"

"You were impressive," the King insisted. "I was very convinced that a dam was a bad idea, even if you convinced me in the time allotted for the orphanage farmland discussion. Everybody has mix ups sometimes."

"Yeah, but why did that 'sometime' have to be today? And then I had that coughing fit and coughed apple cider all over Lord Curmegiant's new robes—why did all of that have to happen the same day?"

The King couldn't answer that question. So instead he turned the conversation to a more fruitful avenue.

"Did I ever tell you about my brother Oswald?" he asked.

Rapunzel shook her head. She'd seen him in the royal portraits, a spindly version of her father captured on canvas somewhere between childhood and adulthood. When she'd asked her mother what had become of him, she'd explained he'd died of consumption when he was seventeen and added that if Rapunzel had been a boy, they'd been planning on naming her after him. This was the first time, however, that the King had brought him up.

"Your uncle," the King began, "was born with a golden tongue. He had an anecdote for every occasion, could smooth over every social rumple, and could immediately engage the interest of everyone. And he knew it." The King's face had been difficult to read before, but now that he was recounting his brother's faults, affection radiated from him. "He was one of the vainest people I have ever known. I would call him overconfident, except that I have to admit his confidence was justified. In short," he summarized, "he was a natural at public speaking. I was not. I became nervous and sweated and mixed up names and when things really started going wrong, I had a tendency to faint."

"You? Faint?" Rapunzel had a very active imagination, but her strong father fainting was something beyond even her capacity.

"It is true. Ask your mother if you do not believe me." He held up his hand as if swearing an oath. "Anyway, I was to appear, for the first time, before the Council of Corona on my 16th birthday, and I was terrified. Oswald thought my anxiety was hilarious—he could never understand not feeling at home at a podium. But he knew I was worried sick over it and reveled quite a bit at his big brother's anxiety. He especially liked doing imitations of me where he would fall down."

"He doesn't sound very nice," was out of Rapunzel's mouth before she could help it.

The King's mustache twitched as a small grin tugged at his lips. His eyes misted over and he rumbled in a low chuckle. "He was my brother," he said by way of explanation, "brothers do things like that. At the time, though, I was not so tolerant. We got into a fight and he bet me I could not speak before the Council without fainting. If I fainted, I had to eat twenty crabapples—this was before I liked them. So I went before the Council and…" he trailed off.

"And?"

"And the next day I had to eat twenty crabapples," he finished.

Rapunzel scrunched up her nose in disgust. True, she'd never actually eaten a crabapple, but these mottled brown squashes her father was throwing into the pond did not look appetizing.

"And you know," the King continued, "the first ten or fifteen were…horrible, but eventually you develop a taste for them. You would be surprised at the things to which you can accustom yourself. When I first bit into a crabapple I thought I could not stand it, but I did stand it, and I bit again and again and again, and I grew to like them...but not that day. I did not grow to like them until next month when Oswald convinced me to make the same bet again."

It was pretty difficult for Rapunzel to miss the moral of the story, but she didn't think it applied in her case. "But it's not that I don't like talking to the Council," she explained. "In fact, I was really looking forward to it. I just wish I hadn't embarrassed myself so much."

The King shook his head. "The lesson to be taken from my crabapple story is that…" he paused and thought about the best way to word his meaning. Even after all these years, eloquence did not come naturally, "on the day I fainted in front of the Council, I thought I would never live it down. And when I started eating those apples, I thought the sour taste would never leave my mouth. But now when I think of fainting before the council, all I feel is pride that I have come so far. I do not faint anymore. I do not mix up names, I do not sweat—I have made a lot of progress. In the future, when you think back to opposing farmland for orphanages and spitting apple cider on Lord Curmudgeon, you will be proud of the progress you have made, and that will make your progress all the sweeter. And when I think of being forced by my younger brother to eat twenty crabapples, all I think of is what a foolish peacock Oswald was and how much I loved him for it. Even bad memories can have good associations. Who knows? Maybe years down the line when you think of losing your shoe in the Council Chamber, you will also think of your loving father who consoled you about it and told you that, even though you did mix up some propositions, he was very, very proud that you, humiliated though you were, stayed in the Council Chamber until the very end of the session, and did not dash out of the room like he did on more than one occasion."

The second half of the last sentence came out muffled, since at the word "proud" Rapunzel sprang at her father and gave him a tight, fierce hug.

As the King pulled Rapunzel up to her feet, he had one more thing to say. "These crabapple trees do not look like much in the moonlight," he admitted, "but if I were you, I would come back tomorrow morning when the flowers are in bloom. It is amazing how much nicer things can look after a good night's sleep."

* * *

The next morning, before breakfast, Rapunzel and Pascal made their way to the crabapple trees. She had considered asking Eugene to join them, but she suspected he would want to sleep in. He and the Queen had stayed up very late that night playing cards.

With the exception of a lot of birds, the garden was deserted at this time of day, so when Rapunzel gasped, "Oh Pascal!" only Pascal heard it.

She had seen the trees before, of course, but she had never really appreciated the soft pink blossoms laced around the branches. A stream of adjectives coursed through her mind—virginal, cloud-like, cottony, heavenly—but none of them really captured the sight before her. She would have to paint a picture, she decided. But first—

She plucked one of small, red apples from a branch and bit into it.

Urgh! Her hand clutched at her mouth as if she had been wounded and the bitten crabapple fell to the grass.

Maybe she would learn to like crabapples someday, but today was not that day.


	3. Chapter 3:  Tulips

"Manners Tutor! Manners Tutor!" Rapunzel collapsed at her desk, huffing and puffing.

Manners Tutor didn't look up from her papers. She just tsked and informed her student that princesses did not enter a room by galloping into it, fall onto furniture, or arrive at etiquette lessons five minutes late.

"Oh, I know that and I'm—I am sorry!" Rapunzel apologized sincerely. "But I have something to show you!"

Manners Tutor at last looked up from her papers and saw what a spectacle her student was. Dress wrinkled, hair ruffled, face red, and—what was that?

"You brought me flowers!" Manners Tutor exclaimed, immediately mollified. They were nice too, those tulips Rapunzel was grasping. White with shocks of red…very tasteful.

"These aren't for you!" Rapunzel burst out, though she set the bouquet on Manners Tutor's desk anyway. "That's what I'm—that is what I am trying to tell you," she corrected herself and slowed her speech. The red was draining from her face and she unconsciously straightened out her hair. "I just received them from Eugene—"

"—Mr. Fitzherbert—"

Rapunzel tried to obey most of Manners Tutor's rules of speech, but calling Eugene "Mr. Fitzherbert" was one she simply couldn't follow. It just seemed silly to call someone who'd died for you "Mr. Fitzherbert." Besides, her mother and father called him "Eugene," so surely she could, too.

"—and I know the book says red tulips mean a marriage proposal is coming, but these are part red, so I was wondering if that counted or if there was some other meaning for striped tulips but it doesn't say in my etiquette book."

Manners Tutor didn't catch the second half of the sentence because it descended into Rapunzel's nervous mumbling. Manners Tutor never corrected Rapunzel on her mumbling. She'd learned from the first day of lessons that criticizing her on that score only made matters a lot worse.

"Sit down Rapunzel," Manners Tutor instructed her.

Rapunzel, who had been gazing at the tulips with a goony expression, snapped back to attention and sat down at her desk automatically. Face forward, back straight, arms at sides—good. At the very least, Manners Tutor had succeeded in teaching her pupil how to sit down properly.

Then Rapunzel's fingers twitched, her gaze slid down to the tulips, and a sort of jelly-looseness rolled down her body. Gone was her perfect posture.

Oh good Heavens.

"Manners Tutor," Rapunzel asked, "did anyone ever give you flowers?"

Princesses did not ask their tutors personal questions. However, Manners Tutor just nodded.

"What kind? Who gave them to you? Did you like him?" Rapunzel leaned forward onto her desk excitedly.

Petunias, Gregory Whitehead, and yes, a great deal—oh, what was she doing? She couldn't actually answer these impertinent questions. In fact, at this moment she should be listing all of the rules Rapunzel had broken and informing her why an ex-thief was not a suitable consort for a princess, tulips or no.

When no answers were forthcoming, Rapunzel launched into another set of questions. Did she like tulips? Her botany book had said tulips came from the Ottoman Empire—how far away was the Ottoman Empire? What flowers were native to Corona?

"Really Princess," Manners Tutor sniffed, "I am not your Science Tutor, nor am I your Geography Tutor. Perhaps you had better ask them those questions."

Yes, but she'd already had those lessons today. Please, wouldn't she at least tell her what her bouquet meant? She bet she was very good at interpreting flowers!

"Well…" Manners Tutor sighed, "I suppose it would be a worthwhile exercise for our studies in courtship…"

Manners Tutor wasn't so bad, not if you flattered her a little.

"Now I do not want you to place too much credence in this," Manners Tutor warned Rapunzel as she plucked her copy of The Language of Flowers from the bookshelf. "You must remember that it is exceedingly unlikely Mr. Fitzherbert consulted a flower dictionary before he selected the tulips. In fact, he may not have chosen the tulips at all…"

Rapunzel nodded vigorously. "Of course," she agreed, not much listening to Manners Tutor's warnings. "So what do striped tulips mean?"

Manners Tutor flipped through the pages. "Bulbs…tulips. Now, the general connotations of tulips are love and fame, but there are more specific ones…here we are: striped tulips." She jabbed her finger at the passage in question. Rapunzel tensed her muscles and shut her eyes in anticipation. "Striped tulips," Manners Tutor read, "mean beautiful eyes."

Rapunzel opened her eyes—her beautiful eyes. "Beautiful eyes?" she asked. "It doesn't say anything in there about marriage?"

Manners Tutor shook her head and replaced the book on the shelf. "Just beautiful eyes."

Rapunzel grinned apologetically. "I know I shouldn't be disappointed—it's not as if Eugene cares anything about the language of flowers. And beautiful eyes—that's nice, isn't it?"

Manners Tutor gave a lady-like sniff. "If Mr. Fitzherbert has not already told you himself—with words, not with flowers—that you have beautiful eyes, there is no excuse for it."

"Oh, he has!" Rapunzel assured her.

"Good." Why it was 'good' that an ex-thief was telling the Princess she had beautiful eyes, Manners Tutor wasn't sure. Still, it seemed like the thing to say. "Mind you that does not mean he is in love with you. It just means he is not lying, because you do have beautiful eyes. But do not become vain about them. They are not that beautiful." In Manners Tutor's experience, young ladies usually thought far too much about whatever compliments they received. Though she had to admit, Rapunzel had never exhibited any signs of vanity, thank Heavens. There were enough problems to deal with already.

"Thank you," Rapunzel replied. "But he does love me," she added. She didn't say it defiantly, most just informing Manners Tutor of the fact so as not to worry her…as if Manners Tutor was spending sleepless nights worrying that Corona's Princess might not end up marrying an orphan thief.

No…as that goony expression again stole over Rapunzel's face when she fastened her gaze on the tulips, Manners Tutor admitted to herself that if anyone was worried that the Princess and the orphan thief wouldn't end up being married, their anxieties were groundless. Rapunzel was clearly intent on having him, and if Flynn Rider—Mr. Fitzherbert let an opportunity to marry royalty slip through his fingers, he was far less shrewd than Manners Tutor thought.

If Manners Tutor were not such a lady, she would have said "drat." Instead she just thought it.

Drat.


	4. Chapter 4:  Heliotropes

Author's Note: And the last one. How many people do I still have? Raise your hands! Of course, I can't see you raise your hands, so you'll just have to review instead...

Anyway, I feel I should warn you that this chapter, more so than the others, makes reference to other stories I have previously written. The princesses are characters from Contractions and Split Infinitives, but that's about all you need to know about them. However, another one of my stories ("The Best Man") is about Eugene's story on his wedding day. I do make reference to what's going on there, so if you're wondering what that's about...yeah. It's not really that important, though, but I thought I should warn you anyway.

* * *

Rapunzel hadn't moved in 20 minutes. She was itching to stand up and take a few steps, but whenever she did as much as twitch, a cacophony of voices sounded.

"Do you want something? I'll get it for you!"

"Stay put. You'll muss up your gown."

"I'll get some water for you—hold on—"

The bridesmaids were taking their duties way too seriously. To the group of princesses assembled in her bed chamber, the merest movement meant a rip, a stain, or a wrinkle, any of which would be a big enough disaster to cancel, or at the very least postpone, the wedding. At this moment, Rapunzel envied Eugene for having the pub thugs as groomsmen. She was sure they wouldn't be taking their offices quite so seriously.

She really wanted to stand up. In fact, she wanted to move so much that she wasn't even thinking, "half an hour and I'll be married." No, she was thinking, "half an hour and I can walk."

"I'm really fine," Rapunzel insisted to anyone who would listen. "My dress isn't going to tear." She started to rise, but four sets of hands firmly pushed her back into her chair.

"Rapunzel, I don't mean to play rank, but this happens to be the fourth wedding ceremony I have been a part of. I think I know better than you the unnecessary risks you're taking in moving around."

When Emily told Catherine to be quiet and pointed out that in two of those weddings she'd just been a flower girl, for an instant Rapunzel thought she may have gained an ally, but her hopes were dashed when Emily turned to Rapunzel and said, "But she's right—for once. Don't press your luck by moving around."

"So I've only been a bridesmaid twice before—that's one more time than you've been a bridesmaid!" Catherine reminded her sister.

"May I remind you that I'm the Maid of Honor here?" Emily pointed out, her hands clutching the sides of her dress.

The bridesmaid dresses were so nice. Gauzy sleeves, lilac fabric, and they didn't have this ridiculous train like Rapunzel's dress did. True, before she'd been wearing the dress she'd loved the train. She'd thought the length of white satin was like a snowy, iced over stream tailing her, dazzling in its pure simplicity, but now that it was yet another obstacle between her and…moving, the train looked very ugly. She was amazed no one had commented on how it spoiled her dress.

Though, she had to admit, her dress was looking uglier and uglier by the moment. So much white—she was tempted to grab a paintbrush and use it as a canvas.

Okay, she wouldn't go that far. But in any case, she couldn't wait to get out of it.

"I know what'll get your mind off of staying still, Rapunzel!" Princess Adrienne suggested, stepping in front of the bickering sisters. She pulled out a letter. "Here's a letter from Renee. She writes all about her wedding tour. Would you like to hear it?" Without waiting for an answer, she began to read. "Today I sailed on the Mediterranean for the first time. Unfortunately the waters were rough and I spent most of the voyage in our cabin trying not to think about the sea, which was not easy since Deming was also below deck trying not to think about the water, only when he tries not to think about something he has a habit of mentioning it very often—"

"—don't read her that!" Maxine interjected, grabbing the offending letter. "You'll make her nervous. Rapunzel and Eugene are going on the Mediterranean during their wedding tour!"

"Please," Adrienne rolled her eyes and grabbed the letter back. "That's not for weeks and anyway, I think Rapunzel and Eugene can handle the water better than Renee and Deming. He gets seasick on a horse."

Catherine and Emily fighting on one side of her, Adrienne and Maxine fighting on the other. There was only one way Rapunzel knew to restore some peace to the room.

She twitched.

All arguments were forgotten in the parade of "stay still!," "sorry—forgot about the water. I'll get it now," and "is there something you need?"

"Would you," she asked no one in particular, "read to me from…" her eyes darted around the room and landed on the nearest novel, "The Princess of Cleves," she asked. "I left off at…" she hadn't actually left off anywhere. She'd finished it late last night when she'd at last given up on trying to fall asleep in all her excitement. She'd finally dozed off at around four in the morning. "Page 72," she said at random. "Start at page 72."

Emily, the first to reach the book in question, started to read. "Great efforts must be used, and you must do great violence to your heart to save yourself: reflect what you owe to your husband; reflect what you owe to yourself, and think that you are going to lose that reputation which you have gained—do you really want us to read this?" she broke off. "As I recall this entire book is about how unhappy marriage is."

Was it? Rapunzel obviously had not been paying too much attention to it the night before. A book about marriage had probably been a poor choice in view of why she was so excited in the first place. Every time marriage was mentioned, which was frequently, Rapunzel's mind would fly off into a dreamland and finally when she'd look back down at the candlelit pages, she'd realize she hadn't absorbed any of the words in at least ten pages.

"Not really," Rapunzel admitted. "But we have to do something! Otherwise I'll scream from not moving. I wish I could just go outside and…run. Really, really quickly."

"Eugene must have felt the same way," Adrienne commented absentmindedly as she looked out the window. "That's probably why I saw him charging away from the palace like there was no tomorrow on that horse an hour ago…"

Rapunzel blanched, Emily slapped her forehead, Maxine groaned, and Catherine murmured, "nice going, Adrienne."

Then Adrienne froze, her hand flew to her mouth, and she apologetically mumbled, "I'm really bad at this bridesmaid business, aren't I?"

There were no disagreements coming from the bridesmaids themselves, but Rapunzel grabbed her hand. The movement, miraculously, did not elicit more warnings to stay put and assurances that someone would get her a glass of water.

"Don't worry," Rapunzel assured her. "I'm not worried, after all. He's not running out on me. I know Eugene."

"If you are worried—or not worried—because you spotted Eugene riding away from the palace, there is really no need. I noticed him too, and I also noticed that the horse he was riding happened to be Maximus, so you see there is no cause for concern. Maximus would never allow him to escape." The last speech came from the Queen, who had just entered the chamber. She was carrying the veil, but nearly dropped it when she spotted her daughter. "Oh my dear," she whispered, "you look perfect."

"Doesn't she?" Emily agreed, surveying Rapunzel. "Personally I don't think Eugene deserves her. Maybe we should cancel the wedding."

"Some Maid of Honor you are," Rapunzel laughed. "According to tradition that would mean you, as my Maid of Honor, would have to marry Eugene instead!"

Emily shrugged. "I'm willing to fulfill that duty if need be. I don't think I'm too good for him."

Suddenly Rapunzel felt something cold around her neck. Her mother was leaning over her, adjusting a gold necklace.

"As promised," she explained, "something old. And it is also the something borrowed, because it is family tradition to give it to one's daughter on her wedding day. One day you will give it to your daughter."

It was a very simple chain. Well made, but there wasn't even a pendant. The Queen, after all, had not come from royalty. Rapunzel was relieved it was simple. All this finery—her dress, her shoes, her veil, all of which counted as her "something new"—was making her nervous. She felt as if at any moment a pirate would leap in the room and steal her away because her clothing was worth so much.

She sincerely thanked the Queen and looked at the clock.

"Only twenty minutes left," she commented. "Should we try on the veil?"

How strange wedding clothes were. Their chief goal seemed to be covering the bride as much as possible. What with this outfit, Rapunzel thought, Eugene would have no idea who that girl walking down the aisle was. With the veil on, all Rapunzel could see was…a snowstorm.

"How am I ever going to walk around with this thing over my face?" she asked.

"It's not so bad," Maxine murmured, helping Rapunzel remove it from her face for the time being. Across the room, Catherine was by the door being handed a load of bouquets by a servant. They were little bundles of heliotrope in varying shades of purple. Pascal, who had up until that moment been pacing in front of the mirror practicing different shades of blue, leapt on the bouquet Catherine handed to Maxine and turned the deep purple of the flowers.

Then Maxine finished helping Rapunzel with the veil and looked down at the bouquet she had unknowingly received from Catherine. At which point Pascal turned yellow, causing a startled Maxine to trip and fall to the floor, yanking the veil, which she still held in one hand, with her.

And that was why, five minutes before her wedding, a seamstress was hastily sewing together Rapunzel's veil. Fortunately Maxine's yank hadn't actually torn the fabric; it had just ripped the veil from the headpiece. Though the repair job was successful in securing the veil, the stitches were hard to miss. Hard to miss, that is, if you were staring at them from two inches away. Rapunzel thought it looked fine. But she was in the minority.

"I can practically see the stitches from across the room!" Catherine insisted.

And that was why, four minutes before her wedding, a seamstress was hastily sewing heliotrope blossoms onto the head piece to cover the stitches. It had been the Queen's suggestion and Rapunzel, when she looked at the finished veil, honestly said, "I think it looks better this way."

It did. It gave her the only thing she had been lacking: some color. White was nice…but she was starting to tire of it. A China Blue Pascal, who had been spending the last 15 minutes apologizing, the best he could, to Maxine, leapt on Rapunzel's shoulder. Then the veil was back over her face and all she could see was white and Pascal.

Then there were hands helping her up and she was standing—standing at last. It felt so good to stand. Hands pressed against her, leading her in the right direction—she felt her weight lighten. Someone must be carrying her train. She heard her mother's voice—"I am so happy for you, darling." They must have still been in the corridor. They hadn't been walking very long. But a corridor you walked several times every day seemed like an entirely different place when you were wearing a wedding dress. More steps, a warning that she was about to go down the stairs—was it really necessary to wear the veil this entire time? After all, no one could see them right now. Everyone was in Throne Hall waiting for the wedding to start—no one was still out in the hallways. Then she was at the bottom of the stairs and she heard murmurs of good luck from her bridesmaids. That's right. They were going in before her. A squeeze of her hand—her mother, she somehow knew. Then she was alone in her snowstorm. No one but her and Pascal.

She breathed in a few times. "Are you ready, Pascal?"

Pascal nodded. Why shouldn't he be ready? After all, all he had to do at the ceremony was…be blue. It wasn't as if he was getting married.

"Are you ready, Rapunzel?" That was her father's voice. He was taking her hand.

Was she ready? How strange—she hadn't really asked herself that question before.

Well, of course she was ready. She was so ready, in fact, that she hadn't even questioned her readiness. If that wasn't ready, what was?

She nodded, causing her veil's fabric to make a gentle shhhh noise.

"Good." There was a pause, then, "those flowers are new, right?"

"Yes."

"What kind are they?" he asked. She could hear music leaking from the Hall. Violins—there were definitely several violins.

"Heliotropes."

"I never knew what my favorite flower was," her father said. "Now I know: heliotropes." He tested the word. "Heliotropes."

Another pause.

"Father?" Rapunzel asked.

"Yes?"

"Shouldn't we be going in?"

"Anytime you wish. I await your lead."

Rapunzel stepped forward.


End file.
